Long-lost letter leads to local judge

It was August 1972. Richard M. Nixon was president. The Summer Olympics were being held in Munich, West Germany. And Tim Taylor was a 13-year-old Boy Scout about to make history.

Now San Diego Superior Court Judge Timothy B. Taylor, he was on a seven-day Boy Scout backpacking trip in a rugged area of the Sierra Nevada. The Scouts had hiked three days when their leader decided to give the boys a free day at the location of a beautiful 10,000-foot lake near Shepherd Pass.

Judge Timothy Taylor during a March 2010 hearing in San Diego Superior Court. — Eduardo Contreras

But Taylor saw an unnamed, 12,000-foot peak on his map and wanted to climb it. He took a daypack, his lunch, a film canister, a pen and paper. He made it to the top, and before leaving, scrawled a note, stuffed it in the canister and wedged it into a crevice. It read:

Taylor was living with his family at the time in La Cañada Flintridge.

Last month, Larry Wright, 69, of Oakland, was hiking with his 14-year-old grandson when he found the canister.

After locating Taylor, Wright talked about the discovery. He said he moved about 30 feet downslope from the peak to take a picture when he saw the canister and opened it to find the clearly legible note.

Wright first tried to find Taylor through the home address that young Taylor wrote on the note. Eventually, the story ended up in a local paper. A friend of Taylor’s late father saw it, called Taylor, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Taylor said he’s gotten about 50 calls since, including from his father’s friends and his high school colleagues.

“The whole thing has been great,” he said.

Taylor said he has vivid memories of the day he left the note. It was one of those clear late-summer days when a young boy had the world at his feet, literally. He remembers returning to base camp and catching grasshoppers and then “epic trout” with the other Scouts.

“It was a wonderful day. I remember it so clearly,” he said.

He noted, in a digital age, some young people probably have never heard of a film canister. So the note ended up being contained in a bit of history itself.

Taylor was appointed to the San Diego Superior Court in January 2005 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 2006, he was elected to a six-year term. He handles criminal, civil and family law cases.

He is married to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laura Taylor of San Diego. She was recently named presiding judge of the court. He said his wife has “gotten a chuckle” out of the note’s notoriety.